City Guide I: Everyday Life

[Messageboard Golem]

One of the dangers of having PCs go into a town for rest an relaxation is that the majority of the time you have no idea what should be there. Many PCs of course just want to go to the latest and greatest tavern for a barfight. But there are those out there that want to go shopping. Those are the ones that will ask the dreaded phrase "Whats on the shelves?"

 

[blade]

This is a review of a PDF file I got from rpgnow.com
Cost: $5 for a 64 page product. Pretty reasonable. I'll probably buy the print version when it comes out.

Art: The border looks neat with that greenman and gargoyle look. But it is jarringly obvious that the center of the picture is done by another artist, and in a completely different style. Thye need to chose a medium of artwork. The interior art is not bad. Portraits were pretty fantastic. But the art at the footer and header I don't get.

Content: Pretty good use of NPCs, magic items, and new normal items, to flesh out several locations that can fit into my campaign, and probably most people's. One thing I disliked was that most of the NPCs had magic weapons. Okay, a larger than expected average. It reminds me the the way 1st edition TSR gave magic items out in such a Monty Haul fashion. Lukcily the other items they give to their NPCs are pretty balanced and tailored to the NPCs.

 

[Morrus]

City Guide I: Everyday Life is a collection of shops and establishments for use in your own game. It's not a town or village in itself; each location is discrete and independent, so it is easy to just grab the ones you want.

There are thirteen locations in total:

[*]Miralles’s - a herbalist/healer
[*]Blithes Spirits - a shop/brewery
[*]Scribes and Paper
[*]Gizelle’s Fine Herbs and Potions
[*]Silken Dreams
[*]Traken Brother’s Stables
[*]Ringing Steel - a blacksmith/weaponsmith
[*]diCarpoli’s Shoes
[*]The Armorium
[*]Reston’s Wood Creations - a master carpenter.
[*]Expedition Outfitters
[*]Stormfeather’s Fletchery
[*]Blue Flame Inn

Each location contains a description of the establishment, lists of wares and prices, details of layout plus the residence of the owner, various NPCs and details of special items found there. The amount of information for each varies, some as short as 3 pages in length (the herbalist), others as long as 9 pages (the tavern). They are well thought out, well detailed and fairly interesting, with colourful, well-rounded characters.

As presented, however, they are not going to fit into everyone's game. The authors preume a certain level of magic in your world (I presume they used the core rules standards as a guide); for many this will be too high. Most of the NPCs have various magical items about their person, and many of the locaitons have magical elements about them - the Blue Flame Inn, for example, is lit by a large well of magical blue eldritch flame. There's nothing wrong with that, of course - but if you do run a low magic game you'll need to tweak some of the locations and NPCs.

That said, tweaking them to suit your game shouldn't present a problem - certainly not enough of a problem for me to mark this product down. If they had presented a low magic set of locations, I would have criticised it for not pandering to those who run high magic campaigns. A default level must be selected, and that default level is never going to be right for everyone.

If I were to make a suggestion, it would be that they take a leaf from Thunderhead Games' book, and present with each location a scaling table. That way, you could easily select the 'version' you want - no magic, low magic, medium magic, high magic, for example.

All this does not contitute a criticism, but the next point does. The first paragraph I read in this product (when glancing at a random page) displayed a lack of care concerning grammar. Looking through the product, I noticed the same mistake prevalent throughout the whole thing - and it's one which bugs me a lot for some reason. The problem is that the author(s) don't seem to have a handle on the difference between a comma and full-stop (period) or semi-colon. Sentences such as this are common:

"These are just a few samples of what you could come up with, you’re encouraged to find new and inventive dishes, the master
cook is able to come up with almost anything, you want Pizza, then add Pizza, it’s your world, have fun with it."

It's a minor gripe, but it bothers me nonetheless, especially when the mistake is repeated frequently.

All in all, though, this is worth the buy. I'll certainly be using it in my game.

 

[Lady Danyon]

Excellent!!! If you want good detail this is it!!! This is worth the money..

The cover art? EXCELLENT!!!

 

[Numion]

You call this a review? You have a positive attitude and thats good and everything, but three sentences doesn't make a review.

Try telling something about the book besides 'It's excellent! Party on!'. You can try to learn to make better reviews by looking at what others have done. I know that there are other as short reviews as yours, but you can do better, right?

 

[Ace]

Disclaimer. I was given a review copy

Darkquest games has come up with an interesting little supplement called City Guide volume 1 Everyday Life.
It is basically a bunch of plug in locations of businesses for your game. All of these stated and set up for d20

The supplement begins with 8 pages of fiction. As much of a black mark as it might be to my reviewers credentials, I have to admit I didn't read it.
Frankly I don't buy game supplements to read the fiction. Still its only 8 pages and on a $4 ($6.95 regularly) PDF just think of it as a little bonus

The supplement details 13 separate location each 3 to 5 (or so) pages long.

I like the layout a great deal. It is clean, easy to use and illustrated with some decent art.

Each location contains fully stated NPC's with personalities. All of these NPC’s are reusable which adds to the value
for more larcenous characters there are details on doors and the like,as well as some treasures

Each location short and effective descriptive boxed text, wonderfully detailed price lists many of which even contain some interesting new items . For example the Blue Flame Inn has a menu. Each location secrets and rumors. With a clever GM any of these locations could be used as a side quest adventure or as a regular place to visit.

On the whole the writing is quite good, the rules use is solid.
Above all the writing is solid enough and is clear as to how this product can be used and or plugged into a game. That’s a huge thing in supplement.
The PDF is also well indexed and book marked, always a plus

The locations are Mirailles Herbs, Blithe Spirits, Scribes and Paper, Gizzels Fine Herbs and Potions, Silken Dreams, Traken Brothers Stables, Ringing Steel, di Carpiolas Shoes, The Armorium, Restons's Wood Creations, Expedition Outfitters, Stormfeather Fletchery, and the Blue Flame Inn

What makes the locations especially nice is that they are useful to adventurers and not unnecessarily strange. While there are odd or magical bits in many of them there is nothing on them that makes the reader weirded out.

All in all this product reminds me of a couple of the better gaming products, City Book (published by Flying Buffalo and in writing style one of my old favorites for D20 Way of Witch (Citizen Games, now published by Troll Lords)

I have few quibbles other than the fiction (I would rather have has another location) and the fact the art might make it a trifle expensive to print. Still the price/value ratio is good.

I look forward to reviewing or buying more in this series.